


If I'm On Fire (You'll be Made of Ashes, Too)

by writeyourheart



Series: love you to the moon and to saturn [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Season/Series 03, and mike is sad too :(, angst kinda, anyway el is sad :(, everyone is grieving and it sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:54:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27537925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writeyourheart/pseuds/writeyourheart
Summary: “Where did you get this?” Her voice is frantic — desperate and demanding — and El is still in her grasp, her mouth agape as Diane tugs bleakly at the hair-tie on her wrist. It's El's eyes that snap him out of his stance; the fear and shock that shine through them, and before Mike can acknowledge his movements at all, he finds himself running towards them — furious, boiling anger pooling throughout every inch of him. He feels like he’s on fire.-El is allowed to go to Hopper's funeral.
Relationships: Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler
Series: love you to the moon and to saturn [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2012812
Comments: 10
Kudos: 49





	If I'm On Fire (You'll be Made of Ashes, Too)

**Author's Note:**

> hi everyone! so i've been meaning to write some sort of angsty post-season 3 fic, and i figured this tied in well with another one of my fics, so I question starting a series of stores that take place in between starcourt and the epilogue. i hope you enjoy this one, it's definitely on the sad side, so grab some tissues if you're sensitive. hope you all enjoy!

The day of Hopper’s funeral is the hottest day of the summer. It’s unfortunate really; to be standing head-to-toe in black under the blaring, July sun, Mike’s blazer glued to the white button-up he’d had to buy only a few days ago (he’d outgrown the one he’d worn for Will’s.)

He’s not quite sure why he expected less people to show, and it was effectively stupid for him to even think so, seeing as Hopper was the chief of police; one of the most acknowledged people around town. He figures it’s because he’d hoped it — less for El to take in. Less unfamiliarity swarming out from every corner while she was already drowning in her own grief.

" _Remember, if they ask you who you are, you tell them….”_

_El blinked, emptily responding with, “His daughter. Not from Diane, from Mama.”_

_It was late at night, the eve of the funeral, and Mike was sitting next to her on the couch as Joyce was crouched below them, both of her hands clutching onto El’s as she crafted the story for her — the story that allowed for her to even be at her father’s funeral at all._

_There was no one else on the couch, but still her side was tightly pressed against his. She looked so tired, and he couldn’t stand that there was nothing he could do to help her. He felt useless and pathetic when he’d always innately been the opposite; helpful and intelligent. He wanted to drag the grief out of El with his bare hands, to tear it out of her skin and extract it from her veins like a virus — but he also knew that grief was necessary — essential to healing. Still, how was it fair when it was El who was grieving— El who was distressed — El, who’d been through enough trauma to last a million lifetimes._

_“That’s it, sweetie.” Joyce nodded somberly every time El spoke, reddened eyes gazing up at her desperately and tugging at her wrists. “And then when they ask you how long you’ve been in his life you say—”_

“A year. Only a year.” It was the twentieth time she’d had to say it by now he thinks, and this time it’s to an elderly woman. She wears the same saddened expression everyone else does when El tells them, crinkled brow, heavy frown, apologetic eyes. The woman moves to press her hand against El’s shoulder, and even from his distanced stance between Nancy and Holly, he can see the way she tenses underneath wrinkly, manicured fingernails — the way she worries at her bottom lip suddenly, like she’s trying to hold herself together.

“I’m so sorry, dear,” the woman laments, and all El does is stare.

_“Why are they all saying sorry?”_

_It was earlier that morning when she’d asked him, after a few people had approached her. She was standing so close to the grave; young girl in a black, lace dress who hovered like an apparition above the empty coffin — certainly, she was going to drag some attention._

_“You said it, too. A few times.” She was staring at him with wide, glossy eyes from where they stood perched under a willow tree, seeking shade. There was saddened frustration lingering in her tone. “Why?”_

_“That’s just what people say when someone dies,” he said. “Because they’re sorry you’re hurting.”_

_She had offered him a half-hearted scowl, like she wasn’t sure if she was upset. “They don’t know me.”_

_“You didn’t know Will.”_

_“Will?” It came out somewhat bitterly, like she didn’t want him to answer her own question, like she wanted to take her words back and shrivel up into herself the way she had all morning. He’d wanted to reach for her — to clasp her hand or graze his knuckles against her cheek or_ anything — _but he hadn’t touched her since he first saw her today, when he’d given her a hug in front of his family as they paid their ‘official’ sympathies, and he didn’t want to cross any boundaries she’d set to make it through the day._

_"When we thought Will was—” he’d paused. The word dead was too heavy. “Gone. When we thought Will was gone, were you sorry?”_

_“Yes,” she’d said quickly. “It was my fault.”_

_He shook his head quickly, sputtering out “no’s,” before he could even think — because, really, that wasn’t her fault, and he’d go over it a million time with her until she understood — but then he couldn’t help but notice the way she curled into herself, arms wrapping around her torso and her head hanging low, loose curls curtaining her face. God, he was so stupid — what was wrong with him?_

_Hastily, he stepped closer to her, though still not quite close enough. His voice softened impossibly as he said, “Okay, forget Will. What about Billy, huh?”_

_She’d cautiously craned her neck up to look at him through curly strands, eyes barely meeting his. She wasn’t crying, but the hollowness he found there was worse._

_“You didn’t know him — and God, he was even a total asshole — you know that; you know how he treated Lucas, and you know how he treated Max, and still — still — I know you feel sorry for Max because she’s sad.” He didn’t have to question it. He’d seen the way she looked at Max when it was Billy’s funeral the week before; gentle, apologetic eyes — she mirrored the people who had been staring at her all day, only worse, because El loved Max — El saw Max — but all those strangers saw was a girl whose father was ripped away from her before she could ever fully characterise him._

_She’d hung her head low again, curls shielding her face, and he couldn’t help but feel his heart shatter. Then, she’d mumbled something quickly, quietly, and Mike had to ask her to say it again for him to understand._

_“My fault, too.” It was a mere whisper, and he was only inches away from her, and if he hadn’t wanted to convince her earlier that all these deaths weren’t her fault then he certainly did at that moment._

_“El,” was all he could say, because he wasn’t sure what was right at that moment, and her name had suddenly felt the only concrete thing left in the world. “No.”_

_She flinched suddenly, shoulders shrinking deeper; she looked as small as she had when he’d found her — smaller, maybe. He was afraid._

_“Hop, too.” It wasn’t the first time she’d said it, and still it hurt like it had been. It was off-putting, how distanced she was from the truth, how much she blamed herself for everything — how much her selflessness encircled her._

_He said her name again, but when he finally reached for her hand — half from instinct and half from desperation — she walked away from him, emerging from the shadowed barriers of the willow tree’s sunken branches and suddenly glowing golden within the all-encompassing sunlight._

“Mike,” Holly pulls him out of the memory, whining and tugging at his sleeve. His head snaps back from El to his sister; she looks tired, and sad even, though she doesn’t really have a full grasp on what’s going on — probably because El looks sad, and she thinks El is the best person in the world. “Can we go see El again?”

Earlier, the Wheeler’s had greeted her together. It was the first time he’d seen her that morning, and he’d never seen her look so stiff. His mom had pulled her into a hug so genuine Mike almost saw her give into it, then Nancy reached out to fix her hair after they embraced, and when Holly went to wrap her arms around El’s torso he nearly saw the ghost of a smile.

And then it was his turn, and his parents were watching, and Holly, and even when he couldn’t care less around Nancy most of the time, this felt too tense — too fake. He didn’t want to hold her around his family, around other people who began to pepper around the graveyard. He wanted to comfort her for real, to hold her the way he had on those first few nights after Starcourt. When their eyes met, he caught a glimpse of wounded candidness within her hardened form, like she had released her only breath of the day when she’d seen him in that moment.

He held her for barely five seconds and she still felt rigid, but her hands were clutched so tightly at the back of his blazer that when he’d tried to let go, she clung to him for a second longer.

“Not now Holly, okay? Other people want to talk to her, too.”

Holly frowns. “Well, it doesn’t look like _she_ wants to talk to _them_.”

He swears that she sounds just like he does, and he isn’t sure if he should laugh or be annoyed. Instead, he holds back a grin and says, “We can’t Holly, it’s rude.”

She looks like she’s going to protest again, but then their mother comes along with some middle-aged woman and her young daughter, taking Holly by the hand to introduce her to them and leaves Mike to stand alone.

Nancy is with Jonathan, huddled by the willow where he’d spoken to El earlier that morning, and Lucas and Max are talking closely with Will, the three of them huddled close together — he catches the way they spare glances at El; concern etched within the creases of their tired faces.

He thinks he’s going to talk to her. It’s what he wants to do — to reach for her, to ask her how she feels, ask how he can help, cling to her as the sun burns at the tops of their heads and leaves them melted. It’s what he did the night of Starcourt, perched under the ambulance with her wrapped up in his arms, and then the day after in the fort, and the night after at the Byers’s, and nearly every day since then.

It wasn’t until a few days ago when she stopped reaching for him. Rather than urging for him to stay overnight, she emptily told him to go home if he wanted to. She hadn’t clung to his hand, or his arm — she hadn’t touched the sides of his face to assure herself that he was _there_ and _real_ in the way she always would.

Nancy said it was normal; she was grieving — growing cold and numb is expected. Once the initial heaviness wears off, all that’s left is an all-encompassing shock that swallows you whole.

He wants to tear the fog away from her vision — to see through to her heart — to just talk to her again — not like he had by the willow, but the way they spoke on those first few nights, when she told him just how it hurt.

He’s already moving before he realizes it; his feet guiding him towards where she stands by Hop’s grave, and he’s nearly reached her until, very suddenly, a woman manages to find her first. She’s slender, and tall, and her blonde hair is pulled back tightly at the top of her head; she’s wearing black, too, and her eyes are nearly as bloodshot as El’s — she’s unfamiliar, and Mike is sure she’s not even from Hawkins.

“You’re Jane, aren’t you?” the woman says. Her voice is tense, and nearly eerie; like she’s frightened of El’s possible answer and yet certain of it all at once. He watches as El’s face twists abruptly. _No one_ is meant to know who she is. Not one person she’s spoken to has even asked for her name — just who she was to Hopper — and when she explained, they’d usually feel too uncomfortable to say anything else afterwards besides offering cautious condolences.

“How…How do you—”

“I’m Diane.” Mike’s brows meet in the middle, features drawn in confusion — but still, the woman stands there proudly, somberly, like her name justifies everything.

El shakes her head gently, still confused — she’s taking slight steps back as Diane inches closer, eyeing her cautiously, and Mike can’t help but feel urgent discomfort twitch throughout him.

“I don’t... I don’t understand,” El murmurs, and he hates the way her voice sounds; quiet, and shaky, and small.

“I’m Jim’s ex-wife.” _Oh._ He understands now. Her apprehensive stance, her eerie voice, the way she stares at El like she’s something else entirely; otherworldly, foreign.

El’s eyes widen at Diane’s proclamation — discomfort is written across her body, and he can feel it just as much as he could feel his own. But then he watches, somewhat frozen, as El reaches a shaky hand to tuck a stray curl away from her face. He watches the way she’s still stepping back, away from the woman before her, and then — swiftly — he watches as Diane’s uneasy eyes grow cold. It happens as he blinks; Diane’s hand clutching at El’s wrist unexpectedly — right against the blue, braided hair-tie he knows is clenched against her skin beneath Diane’s fingers.

“ _Where did you get this_?” Her voice is frantic — desperate and demanding — and El is still in her grasp, her mouth agape as Diane tugs bleakly at her wrist. It’s El’s eyes that snap him out of his stance; the fear and shock that shine through them, and before Mike can acknowledge his movements at all, he finds himself running towards them — furious, boiling anger pooling throughout every inch of him. He feels like he’s on fire.

“ _Hey_!” He shouts the words quickly, and he barely has to apply any of his strength to tug El out from Diane’s grasp — it’s like his words strike something inside of her — like he’d awoken her from some hazy, wicked daze. She releases El suddenly, taking several paces back as she does, her darkened eyes widening at the realization of what’d she done — how she’d acted.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” He can’t help but sneer, shoving himself in front of El like he can shield her if Diane were to try anything again. He can feel one of her hands clutch at the material of his blazer, right by his elbow, the other reaching out to cling to the skin of his wrist.

“I….” Diane stutters, a palm over her mouth as tears begin to leak from her eyes — she seems so distraught it’s frightening. And she’s muttering words now, barely coherent from the way they muffle against her hand. Still he catches bits and pieces; “Sorry,” and “No sleep,” and “Sarah. _My_ Sarah.”

Magically — thankfully — Joyce is at their side. She’s reaching for Diane, an arm across her shoulders to guide her away as she sobs, and when she looks at Mike, he knows exactly what she wants. _Get El away from here — now._

He reacts instinctively; his fingers reaching for El’s which still clutch at his wrist. When he turns towards her, he nearly flinches. Her eyes are red-rimmed, and she’s shaking so heavily it’s like she’s made of nothing but dust and smoke. One of his hands finds her face, and she trembles so heavily from underneath his palm that he can feel the vibrations.

“Hey — Hey, it’s okay, I’ve got you, okay?” he says, because there’s nothing else to say right now, and he can feel the way people around the cemetery are watching them, and God, he’d say anything on earth to get her to calm down. Her mouth is opening and closing very quickly, like she’s trying to speak but she can’t manage, and all Mike can do is wrap an arm around her shoulders and guide her away from Hop’s grave, right towards the parking lot. His mom asked him to hold onto the car keys once they’d arrived, and he can hear them clanking in his pocket as El folds herself into his side, the both of them quickly ushering themselves away.

It's mostly a blur until they’re both in the car — Her hands clutching at his blazer, Max, Lucas, Dustin and Will watching them with worried eyes, his mom asking where he’s going (he doesn’t answer), the hurried way he reaches for his keys without trying to startle El any further.

He urges her to shuffle in before he does, and when he closes the door back in on them, the first thing he notices is how _hot_ it is. Sunlight burns in from the windows, and the leather seats sting through his clothes. He pulls his blazer off before he finds himself drenched in sweat, carelessly throwing it to the floor.

It’s still boiling, and he questions if it’s still that anger flaring up within him — but the sun blazes against his cheek like it’s trying to cut a hole through his skin.

El, still, is shaking — shivering, like it’s winter and she’s just stepped out of freshly fallen snow, her fingers trembling against her forearms as she clutches to herself. She’s not crying, but her eyes are glossed over, like she’s lost, or frozen — she’s not staring at him either, her eyes are plastered to her shaking lap. Panic erupts inside of him and all traces left of anger wither to concern.

“ _El._ ” He reaches out to place his hands against her own, squeezing. Her breathing is sharp and unsteady, and soon enough he finds himself coaching her on how to breathe. It takes a minute for her to register — a minute for her to look up at him, wide-eyed and pained — a minute until she lets out a dry, heaving sob and leans into him so suddenly he barely has the time to position himself for her head against his neck, her arms around his torso. 

His fingers course through her hair, and he can feel her fingernails digging into the cotton of his button up. This is the most he’s seen her cry since those first few nights after Starcourt, and he wonders whether or not this is good — whether she needed this, or whether Diane just handed her one more emotional burden she didn’t deserve.

“I’m so sorry El,” he says finally, after a few moments of silence. “She’s got to be _crazy_ — I know she’s grieving or whatever, but God, who acts like that? Joyce asked her to leave, I’m sure — she wouldn’t let her stay after she touched you that way— and you don’t have to go back out there until she’s gone, okay?” He’s rambling and he knows it, but that’s innate for Mike — most of the time, stress allows him to speak too much.

He thinks he’s made it worse for a second, because El freezes up against him and he questions if he’s crossed a line. But then, slowly — finally — she pulls her face away from his neck to look into his eyes. She’s golden in the sunlight, her hair softened, and the tears on her cheeks glisten against her skin, and his heart shatters again and again at the sight of her like this. He doesn’t know what to do anymore, and he can’t take it.

He questions what to say — thinks of what he can muster up in order to make her feel better, like he hadn’t been trying just as hard this morning, or yesterday, the day before that — but then, very slowly, she tugs up her wrist to stare down at the hair-tie that clings to her skin.

“It was her daughter’s,” she said, cautiously. “Sarah’s. and I took it from her.” She pronounces her words very vigilantly, like she’s beginning to grow afraid of her own self.

Mike reaches out to wrap his hand at her wrist, and unlike Diane, he does it softly, tenderly, leaving part of the hair tie visible for her to see. She doesn’t flinch when he touches her, instead she melts, like letting out a tired sigh.

“You didn’t take it from her, El. It was given to you.” She looks up at him again — those damn wide-eyes brimming with tears again, leaving his throat dry. His other hand folds around the back of her neck. “Your dad gave it to you _._ ”

She shakes her head quickly, trying to protest, but Mike can’t take it anymore. The self-blame, the way she’s constantly hurting, the way it’s one thing after the other for her and she can’t ever seem to catch a break. It’s like the dam in his chest shatters, and everything inside of him pools out.

“El — El, no — just listen to me, okay. Please, just listen to me.” He’s begging, and he knows his voice sounds desperate, but he doesn’t know what else to do and he just wants her to _understand_. “This,” he squeezes the hair tie on her wrist, “is _yours_. It belongs to you.”

It’s like once he starts, he can’t stop.

“And that lady —” he points out the window, towards the cemetery, “Won’t take it from you. You didn’t _steal_ it from her. And none of that — not one minute of it — was your fault, okay? Because I know you, and I know that you’re thinking that it was, but it’s _not_ your fault. None of this is — not one bad thing in the three years I’ve known you has ever been your fault. Not Hopper, or Will, or Billy — and I really, _really_ need you to believe me because I can’t let you go around carrying that inside of you — I just can’t.”

When he breaks off, he realizes his voice is wavering, like he’s having a hard time breathing, and his throat feels clogged up and raw. It doesn’t matter though, because he thinks that if he didn’t say anything at all he’d have died.

He notices that her eyes are still wide once he shuts up, but there’s something else laced there now — less urgency, less fear. He knows he can’t erase her grief, that his words won’t take away her feelings, wont magically convince her to stop feeling guilty for the things that weren’t ever her fault — but there’s a sense of familiarity within her gaze.

It reminds him of that day by the train tracks, when his chin was cut from that rock. “I understand,” she’d said. The look in her eyes now ghosts the look she had then, and suddenly, her feels very young again — innocent, and vulnerable — after all, he had just poured his heart out to her.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters quickly. “I know that was a lot — and you’re dealing with a lot, and you didn’t need that, I’m sorry—”

“Mike.” Her voice is sweet, and timid, and he realizes how young she sounds, too — how vulnerable. “I understand.”

He thinks it’s the first time he’s properly been able to breathe in weeks. She _understands_. She always does — so he’s not surprised — but still, he’s relieved.

“I…. I’ll try,” she says, “To not feel bad.”

“You can grieve, El, you _have_ to grieve. But you can’t just let yourself hurt more than you deserve, okay?”

She offers him a gentle smile and nods, slowly, and when he offers one back, her arms crawl around his neck and her face lands there, too. His hands trace patterns against her back while she clings to him. It’s still so hot in the car — and El’s tears are warm against his burning skin, but he thinks he’d stay like this all day if she’d asked him to.

“It hurts,” she murmurs against his skin. He knows what she means; the grief, Diane, the entirety of the day, the entirety of the _month_.

“I know.” He presses a kiss to her hair. “But it’ll get better.”

“Promise?”

He squeezes her back, lace caught up in his fingers, his own eyes threatening to leak, and delicately he whispers, “Promise.”


End file.
